My God! What has happened to me? I do not know how I shall tell my reader about it. I was on the brink of the abyss, I almost perished. What cruel temptations fate is sending me! Fools, we smile, without suspecting anything, when some murderous hand is already lifted to attack us; we smile, and the very next instant we open our eyes wide with horror. I—I cried. I cried. Another moment and deceived, I would have hurled myself down, thinking that I was flying toward the sky.
It turned out that “the charming stranger” who wore a dark veil, and who came to me so mysteriously three times, was no one else than Mme. N., my former fiancee, my love, my dream and my suffering.
But order! order! May my indulgent reader forgive the involuntary incoherence of the preceding lines, but I am sixty years old, and my strength is beginning to fail me, and I am alone. My unknown reader, be my friend at this moment, for I am not of iron, and my strength is beginning to fail me. Listen, my friend; I shall endeavour to tell you exactly and in detail, as objectively as my cold and clear mind will be able to do it, all that has happened. You must understand that which my tongue may omit.
I was sitting, engaged upon the preparation of my lecture, seriously carried away by the absorbing work, when my servant announced that the strange lady in the black veil was there again, and that she wished to see me. I confess I was irritated, that I was ready to decline to see her, but my curiosity, coupled with my desire not to offend her, led me to receive the unexpected guest. Assuming the expression of majestic nobleness with which I usually greet my visitors, and softening that expression somewhat by a smile in view of the romantic character of the affair, I ordered my servant to open the door.
“Please be seated, my dear guest,” I said politely to the stranger, who stood as dazed before me, still keeping the veil on her face.
She sat down.
“Although I respect all secrecy,” I continued jestingly, “I would nevertheless ask you to remove this gloomy cover which disfigures you. Does the human face need a mask?”
The strange visitor declined, in a state of agitation.
“Very well, I’ll take it off, but not now—later. First I want to see you well.”
The pleasant voice of the stranger did not call forth any recollections in me. Deeply interested and even flattered, I submitted to my strange visitor all the treasures of my mind, experience and talent. With enthusiasm I related to her the edifying story of my life, constantly illuminating every detail with a ray of the Great Purpose. (In this I availed myself partly of the material on which I had just been working, preparing my lectures.) The passionate attention with which the strange lady listened to my words, the frequent, deep sighs, the nervous quiver of her thin fingers in her black gloves, her agitated exclamations—inspired me.
Carried away by my own narrative, I confess, I did not pay proper attention to the queer behaviour of my strange visitor. Having lost all restraint, she now clasped my hands, now pushed them away, she cried and availing herself of each pause in my speech, she implored:
“Don’t, don’t, don’t! Stop speaking! I can’t listen to it!”
And at the moment when I least expected it she tore the veil from her face, and before my eyes—before my eyes appeared her face, the face of my love, of my dream, of my boundless and bitter sorrow. Perhaps because I lived all my life dreaming of her alone, with her alone I was young, with her I had developed and grown old, with her I was advancing to the grave—her face seemed to me neither old nor faded—it was exactly as I had pictured it in my dreams—it seemed endlessly dear to me.
What has happened to me? For the first time in tens of years I forgot that I had a face—for the first time in tens of years I looked helplessly, like a youngster, like a criminal caught red-handed, waiting for some deadly blow.
“You see! You see! It is I. It is I! My God, why are you silent? Don’t you recognise me?”
Did I recognise her? It were better not to have known that face at all! It were better for me to have grown blind rather than to see her again!
“Why are you silent? How terrible you are! You have forgotten me!”
“Madam—”
Of course, I should have continued in this manner; I saw how she staggered. I saw how with trembling fingers, almost falling, she was looking for her veil; I saw that another word of courageous truth, and the terrible vision would vanish never to appear again. But some stranger within me—not I—not I—uttered the following absurd, ridiculous phrase, in which, despite its chilliness, rang so much jealousy and hopeless sorrow:
“Madam, you have deceived me. I don’t know you. Perhaps you entered the wrong door. I suppose your husband and your children are waiting for you. Please, my servant will take you down to the carriage.”
Could I think that these words, uttered in the same stern and cold voice, would have such a strange effect upon the woman’s heart? With a cry, all the bitter passion of which I could not describe, she threw herself before me on her knees, exclaiming:
“So you do love me!”
Forgetting that our life had already been lived, that we were old, that all had been ruined and scattered like dust by Time, and that it can never return again; forgetting that I was grey, that my shoulders were bent, that the voice of passion sounds strangely when it comes from old lips—I burst into impetuous reproaches and complaints.
“Yes, I did deceive you!” her deathly pale lips uttered. “I knew that you were innocent—”
“Be silent. Be silent.”
“Everybody laughed at me—even your friends, your mother whom I despised for it—all betrayed you. Only I kept repeating: ‘He is innocent!’”
Oh, if this woman knew what she was doing to me with her words! If the trumpet of the angel, announcing the day of judgment, had resounded at my very ear, I would not have been so frightened as now. What is the blaring of a trumpet calling to battle and struggle to the ear of the brave? It was as if an abyss had opened at my feet. It was as if an abyss had opened before me, and as though blinded by lightning, as though dazed by a blow, I shouted in an outburst of wild and strange ecstasy:
“Be silent! I—”
If that woman were sent by God, she would have become silent. If she were sent by the devil, she would have become silent even then. But there was neither God nor devil in her, and interrupting me, not permitting me to finish the phrase, she went on:
“No, I will not be silent. I must tell you all. I have waited for you so many years. Listen, listen!”
But suddenly she saw my face and she retreated, seized with horror.
“What is it? What is the matter with you? Why do you laugh? I am afraid of your laughter! Stop laughing! Don’t! Don’t!”
But I was not laughing at all, I only smiled softly. And then I said very seriously, without smiling:
“I am smiling because I am glad to see you. Tell me about yourself.”
And, as in a dream, I saw her face and I heard her soft terrible whisper:
“You know that I love you. You know that all my life I loved you alone. I lived with another and was faithful to him. I have children, but you know they are all strangers to me—he and the children and I myself. Yes, I deceived you, I am a criminal, but I do not know how it happened. He was so kind to me, he made me believe that he was convinced of your innocence—later I learned that he did not tell the truth, and with this, just think of it, with this he won me.”
“You lie!”
“I swear to you. For a whole year he followed me and spoke only of you. One day he even cried when I told him about you, about your sufferings, about your love.”
“But he was lying!”
“Of course he was lying. But at that time he seemed so dear to me, so kind that I kissed him on the forehead. Then we used to bring you flowers to the prison. One day as we were returning from you—listen—he suddenly proposed that we should go out driving. The evening was so beautiful—”
“And you went! How did you dare go out with him? You had just seen my prison, you had just been near me, and yet you dared go with him. How base!”
“Be silent. Be silent. I know I am a criminal. But I was so exhausted, so tired, and you were so far away. Understand me.”
She began to cry, wringing her hands.
“Understand me. I was so exhausted. And he—he saw how I felt—and yet he dared kiss me.”
“He kissed you! And you allowed him? On the lips?”
“No, no! Only on the cheek.”
“You lie!”
“No, no. I swear to you.”
I began to laugh.
“You responded? And you were driving in the forest—you, my fiancee, my love, my dream! And all this for my sake? Tell me! Speak!”
In my rage I wrung her arms, and wriggling like a snake, vainly trying to evade my look, she whispered:
“Forgive me; forgive me.”
“How many children have you?”
“Forgive me.”
But my reason forsook me, and in my growing rage I cried, stamping my foot:
“How many children have you? Speak, or I will kill you!”
I actually said this. Evidently I was losing my reason completely if I could threaten to kill a helpless woman. And she, surmising apparently that my threats were mere words, answered with feigned readiness:
“Kill me! You have a right to do it! I am a criminal. I deceived you. You are a martyr, a saint! When you told me—is it true that even in your thoughts you never deceived me—even in your thoughts!”
And again an abyss opened before me. Everything trembled, everything fell, everything became an absurd dream, and in the last effort to save my extinguishing reason I shouted:
“But you are happy! You cannot be unhappy; you have no right to be unhappy! Otherwise I shall lose my mind.”
But she did not understand. With a bitter laugh, with a senseless smile, in which her suffering mingled with bright, heavenly joy, she said:
“I am happy! I—happy! Oh, my friend, only near you I can find happiness. From the moment you left the prison I began to despise my home. I am alone there; I am a stranger to all. If you only knew how I hate that scoundrel! You are sensible; you must have felt that you were not alone in prison, that I was always with you there—”
“And he?”
“Be silent! Be silent! If you only heard with what delight I called him scoundrel!”
She burst into laughter, frightening me by the wild expression on her face.
“Just think of it! All his life he embraced only a lie. And when, deceived, happy, he fell asleep, I looked at him with wide-open eyes, I gnashed my teeth softly, and I felt like pinching him, like sticking him with a pin.”
She burst into laughter again. It seemed to me that she was driving wedges into my brain. Clasping my head, I cried:
“You lie! You lie to me!”
Indeed, it was easier for me to speak to the ghost than to the woman. What could I say to her? My mind was growing dim. And how could I repulse her when she, full of love and passion, kissed my hands, my eyes, my face? It was she, my love, my dream, my bitter sorrow!
“I love you! I love you!”
And I believed her—I believed her love. I believed everything. And once more I felt that my locks were black, and I saw myself young again. And I knelt before her and wept for a long time, and whispered to her about my sufferings, about the pain of solitude, about a heart cruelly broken, about offended, disfigured, mutilated thoughts. And, laughing and crying, she stroked my hair. Suddenly she noticed that it was grey, and she cried strangely:
“What is it? And life? I am an old woman already.”
On leaving me she demanded that I escort her to the threshold, like a young man; and I did. Before going she said to me:
“I am coming back to-morrow. I know my children will deny me—my daughter is to marry soon. You and I will go away. Do you love me?”
“I do.”
“We will go far, far away, my dear. You wanted to deliver some lectures. You should not do it. I don’t like what you say about that iron grate. You are exhausted, you need a rest. Shall it be so?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I forgot my veil. Keep it, keep it as a remembrance of this day. My dear!”
In the vestibule, in the presence of the sleepy porter, she kissed me. There was the odour of some new perfume, unlike the perfume with which her letter was scented. And her coquettish laugh was like a sob as she disappeared behind the glass door.
That night I aroused my servant, ordered him to pack our things, and we went away. I shall not say where I am at present, but last night and to-night trees were rustling over my head and the rain was beating against my windows. Here the windows are small, and I feel much better. I wrote her a rather long letter, the contents of which I shall not reproduce. I shall never see her again.
But what am I to do? May the reader pardon these incoherent questions. They are so natural in a man in my condition. Besides, I caught an acute rheumatism while travelling, which is most painful and even dangerous for a man of my age, and which does not permit me to reason calmly. For some reason or another I think very often about my young friend K., who went to an untimely grave. How does he feel in his new prison?
To-morrow morning, if my strength will permit me, I intend to pay a visit to the Warden of our prison and to his esteemed wife. Our prison—
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